


All the Things Lost

by scatterthestars



Category: Glee, Glee RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, mentions of Darren and another guy, prostitute!Darren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4989460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scatterthestars/pseuds/scatterthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't what Darren planned for his life to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Things Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I've been majorly stuck on my CCBB and needed to write some cc to help. This is what came out. This was inspired by a tweet from someone I follow on twitter who asked for angsty prostitute! Darren. Well, if you read this: Here you go!
> 
> Sorry for the crappy summary.

The bathroom floor is grimy and sticky like it's always been.  With every movement of his boots, a squeak is heard.  The soles of his boots sticking to what covers the floor.  He doesn't want to think about what it is that makes the floor sticky.  Doesn't want to think about what people have done to cause this.  Doesn't want to think of other people lowering themselves like he does day after day to survive.

The air is acrid, and smelling of sweat and dirt, and piss.  With every breath he pulls in, it coats his nose, and the back of his throat.  It's a smell he's sadly familiar with now.  A smell that he hates.  A smell he wishes he would never have to smell again.

The stall walls are covered in names, numbers, and symbols written in different colored Sharpies.  Blue, red, green, purple.  But mainly black.  Black words and numbers he reads over and over.  Names and numbers that make him wonder who the people are that they belong to.  Are they alone like him?  Teenagers?  Kids?  Adults?  Are they happy?  Or they like him: just living; going day by day in a world he now hates; that seems to hate him?

Darren turns his head to look away from the guy he is currently taking care of.  He can never look at them.  Can never see their eyes as he demeans himself.  Makes himself less than what he could be.

"Oh, God!"  The guy's stale, hot breath brushes over his neck.

Darren closes his eyes and shuts himself out from this moment.  He forces himself to go somewhere else. Somewhere nice.  A place that doesn't make his stomach turn at the smell.  That doesn't make him feel dirtier after he leaves.

The place he goes to is somewhere where he feels safe.  Where he has no worries.  Where the warm sun falls on his face.  Where the happiness he's long ago stopped looking for comes to him in droves.  It's a place where strong arms wrap around him and pull him back against a warm, inviting body.  Where he is loved, and loves back with ease.

"F-Fuck!  Oh, God!  Fuck!"  The guy bites his lower lip to quiet his noises as he spills over Darren's fist.

Darren winces at the warm splashes on his hand.

He comes out of his safe place.

He's back in the dirty, disgusting bathroom doing what it takes to survive.

As soon as the guy finishes, Darren rips his hand away.  He doesn't want to touch him for any longer than he needs to.

"Thanks," the guy breathes out in pleasure.  Forehead still pressed to Darren's jaw.  Hot breath rushing over his skin.

Darren pulls himself away from the guy.  He hears the jangle of a belt buckle as pants are lifted and fastened.

"No problem."  Several squares of toilet paper ripped off the roll, Darren cleans his hand.  He tosses the balled up, used toilet paper into the small overflowing trash bin in the corner of the stall.

"How much I owe you?"

Darren stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets.  "Ten."

The guy pulls out his wallet.  It's only then that Darren notices the ring.  The translucent yellow of the light above making the silver of the ring glint.  Guilt washes over Darren.  He hates when this happens.  When he is unknowingly pulled into a wrong situation just because he needs the cash.  He hates the guilt that eats at him when he thinks of the person at home waiting for their cheating husband to come home.  Sometimes he wishes he could find the innocent partner.  Tell them the truth.  Ruin their lives like his is.  But then he thinks about how no one deserves a broken, unhappy life like his.  That those people should go on living in their unsuspecting bubbles.

"You're married?"  Darren accuses, the guilt he feels intensifying.

"Yeah.  Is eight okay?"

When the guy tips his wallet back a little, it's then Darren sees the picture in the wallet.  It's of a woman in her late thirties.  Dark hair that hangs past her shoulders in loose waves frames her oval face.  She's pretty.  Her bright eyes shine in the picture.  A big, happy smile on her face.  To her sides, she hugs two little kids.  For a moment, Darren wonders if she knows.  If she knows her marriage is a lie?  That her husband probably married her thinking it would be easier to lie to himself than admit the truth to the world.

For a brief moment, Darren feels sorry for her.  For the moment when she finds out the truth.  For the years she realized she wasted on a man who probably never really loved her like she loves him.  But he thinks of the two kids in the picture.  Thinks maybe she won't regret everything that happened.  Of the years taken.

"Yeah."  Darren takes the cash from the guy.  Not enough.  Never enough.

After the guy leaves, leaning back against the stall wall, Darren looks at the three bills of money he has.  Eight dollars for less than five minutes of work.  It's laughable to him.  For everything he goes through, all his time is worth to someone is eight measly dollars.  Not even enough to take a cab home.

Right there in that dirty stall, standing on a sticky floor, he wants to crumple to the floor and cry.  Let everything from the past ten years in and just let go.  Let go of everything he's been holding on to; everything he's held in.  He wants to cry until there's nothing left.  Until it's all gone.  Until he's free of everything that haunts him.

Darren stuffs the money into his pocket.  No point in crying over the choices he makes.  He put himself in this situation.  Chose this life.  Now he has to live with the horrible consequences.

Walking out of the stall, head down, he goes to the sink.  He ignores the usual looks he gets as he thoroughly washes his hands.  A few meager looks of sympathy.  But mainly ones of disgust.  After doing this for years, he's learned to ignore the looks of disgust he, and other guys like him who do the same thing here, gets.

Few times in the past he's wanted to yell at them.  To scream fuck you.  That they don't know him.  Don't know that this was never his plan.  That he hates himself even more after each time he does something.

But instead of doing that, instead of making them understand, he always ends up biting his tongue and walking out with their eyes filled with disgust boring into his back.

 

* * *

 

"What can I get you?"  The lady behind the counter asks in a tired, bored voice.  Her red hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and frizzy all over.  Tired green eyes stare at him as she waits for a reply.  Her lips pursing show off the lines around her mouth.  She impatiently taps her pen against her pad as she softly groans under her breath.

The diner is mostly empty, which is no surprise since it's almost midnight.

Darren drops the handful of coins he has on the countertop.  He counts what little change he has left after buying much needed Tylenol for the splitting headache he had, and catching a bus here.  A little over a dollar.  Not enough for much.  Although starving, the grumble of his stomach confirming that, he knows he has to settle for whatever he can afford.

"Just a cup of coffee please," he orders with a small smile, and an even smaller, sad voice.

The lady huffs, as if she hates dealing with the broke customers who never have enough for a tip afterwards.  She's like him: looking to make money to make ends meet.  To live.

This is not how he pictured his life being when he was growing up.  He dreamed of going to college.  Of making music.  Of dating, and falling in love.  Not of sitting in a diner alone counting pennies and dimes from what little money he makes a day to see if he even has enough for a cup of coffee.

As the lady gets his coffee, Darren thinks about the plan he had for his life.  About the way everything was supposed to be.  But thinking about that only manages to bring the memories of that horrible night to the forefront of his mind.

Sitting there, head in his hands, Darren fights the tears that threaten to spill over.  He can't stop his body from violently trembling.  Can't stop his heavy breathing as laughter and music and bright lights scramble together in his mind to turn a great memory into a horrible one.

It's too much.  This memory always leaves him broken, and filled with guilt.  It makes him want to scream and cry out.  To go into a ball and beg for forgiveness over and over again. To apologize for what he did.

"You okay?"  A kind, warm voice speaking to him slowly brings him out of the black hole that he is falling down.  The voice like a bright beacon of light that promises comfort and safety at the end of this once endless hole.

Wiping away the single tear that managed to roll down his cheek, Darren nods his head.  He calms his breathing.  "I'm fine."  He looks up.  Looks up to see who this voice belongs to.

Blue eyes that sit behind black framed glasses remind him of perfect days under the beautiful sky stare at him with a mix of concern and worry.  Darren finds himself wanting to drown in those eyes.  Drown until he can't breathe; can't think about anything else but how good it feels to finally be free of everything he feels.

Then it hits him.  He knows these eyes.  Has gotten lost in them before.  And staring into them feels like coming home.

"Darren?"  Chris says uncertain as he really gets a good look at Darren.

Along with the uncertainty he heard, Darren hears the smallest ounce of hope in Chris' voice.  His voice so warm and welcoming that he’s missed more than he realized.

"Darren," Chris says more confident.  "I...I can't believe-I thought I'd never see you again."

"No."  Darren shakes his head.  This can't happen.  He can't let Chris know it's him.  He can't let him see how low he has sunken.

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are."  Chris steps close to Darren.  Darren flinches when he tentatively touches his face.  The soft, tender touch makes Darren want to cry.  It's been years since someone has touched him so gently.  With such care and love.  "It's you."  Chris drags his fingers down and skims them over lips he hasn't kissed in over a decade.

Chris’ touch brings about the smallest of ounces of happiness like it always did.  Happiness that sends Darren to the place he goes to when he wants to escape his terrible life.

“No,” Darren tries to say again.

“Yes.  I remember you.  I could never forget.”

Darren jerks away from Chris' touch.  As much as he wants to let him continue touching him, to relive the press of soft lips on his when everything seemed possible, he can't.  He can't let Chris touch him.  Won't.  Not after what he's become.  After who is now.

That's the thing.  Darren knows Chris only sees him as the guy he once knew.  Once loved.  But he doesn't know him anymore.  He doesn't know who he's become.  What he's done to survive.

"I've missed you so much, Darren."  Darren catches Chris when he launches himself at him without a moment's thought.

Chris' warm, strong body pressed to his brings up memories that are too painful for Darren.  He thinks about early Saturday mornings after a night spent together.  Thinks of naked bodies pressed close, so close it seemed as if they were trying to become one.  Thinks of whispered hopes and promises that seemed possible then.  Mainly, he thinks of a love so strong, so certain, so consuming that it's never left him.  And as much as he wants to experience that again, he knows can't bring Chris into what his world is now.

"I'm sorry.  I can't."  Darren pushes Chris away.  It breaks him in half doing that.  He remembers once making a promise to Chris he would never do that.  And breaking that promise right now makes him hate himself.  But he tells himself it's for a good reason.  He doesn't deserve Chris.  Chris deserves someone better; someone who isn't broken.

Before Chris can try to do or say anything Darren runs out of the diner.  He runs until his lungs burn.  Until his eyes water from the cold wind.  Until he feels he's run away from the one person who could make it better.  Who made it better for those few seconds he held him in his embrace.

Down a dark, dirty alleyway, Darren leans back against a brick wall and catches his breath.  He forces himself to not think about blue eyes.  About a soft, warming touch.  About a brief breath of happiness that made him alive for the first time in years.  He forces himself to forget, because if he holds onto those memories it will only hurt the longer he does.

 

* * *

 

“No,” Darren tells the guy for the fifth time.

The guy, the married one he remembers from a couple weeks before, pulls out his wallet and grabs another twenty dollar bill.  Darren catches a glimpse of the picture he remembers from last time.  The same picture of the woman with her two children.  A picture of a perfect family that would make it so no one would ever question the guy who holds the wallet digging for money for sex with another guy.

“Forty!”  He shoves the money in Darren’s face.

It’s a tempting offer.  The money would definitely come in handy.  But looking at this guy, this guy so eager for another man’s touch that he is willing to pay for it, all Darren can think about is Chris.  Since first seeing him, it seems as if something turned.

“I’m sorry, but, no.”  Darren shoves the man’s hand away from his face.  “Go find it somewhere else.  Or better yet, go back to your wife and children.”  With that, he starts to walk away.

“Fuck you!” the guy yells at him.  “You’re going to regret this!”

“Trust me, I won’t.”

Darren doesn’t know how long he walks.  And he isn’t sure where it is he’s going.  It’s only when he stops across the street from the familiar diner does he realize where his feet have lead him.

He stands there and watches Chris, just like he’s done every night for the past week since he first saw him.  Hands shoved in his pockets, and shivering as the cold wind blows, every part of him wants to cross the street and walk into that diner.  To go up to Chris and apologize for everything he did; for leaving without a single word.

But he can’t.  He can’t let Chris into what his world is now.  Can’t let him see what he’s let himself become.  Instead, he stands there and watches him.  It's the best thing he can do: watch from a distance.

Darren notices how Chris stares at the door.  It's the same thing he's done every night for the past seven days.  He stares at the door with hope night after night.  He notices how tired and worn out Chris looks after a week of waiting.  How with each night that passes he loses more and more of his hope of seeing him again.  And it breaks his heart to know how much he’s hurting Chris right now.  He wants to change it.  To make him happy.  To give Chris what he’s waiting for.  But he’s too scared to do that.  Too scared to tell Chris what he’s become only to be turned away.  To be looked at like he's dirt on the bottom of a shoe.

After giving himself a few minutes of happiness he’s allowed himself every night for the past week, Darren knows it's time to walk away.  If he stays any longer there is the chance Chris might see him.  Or he won't be able to walk away.

With one last, lingering look at the man he still loves, Darren turns on his heel and walks away from the diner.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry. The end probably sucked. I just needed to write something to help me.


End file.
